AdvancED Ongoing

The second domain of the AdvancED accreditation process is Governance and Leadership. It focuses on direction, authority and leadership for our Catholic schools to effectively function with basic operations, academic excellence and Catholic identity.

This domain establishes guidelines regarding how to be effective in leadership roles to make schools successful. Benchmarks involving school principals, committees, administrators and staff – working in a team effort – govern the schools using the school missions as the goals.

Reitz Memorial High School (Evansville) Principal Cyndi Schneider and St. John the Baptist Catholic School (Newburgh) Principal Elizabeth Flatt lead the committee overseeing the Governance and Leadership domain. The committee uses information from internal and external school visits, analyses of numerous surveys, test scores, and in-depth evaluations and reviews, to discover and identify school strengths and weaknesses.

The committees work will reveal how the community, diocese and school administrators perceive diocesan Catholic schools; how students are performing; how things are being done; and areas in need of improvement.

“This domain started three years ago, and it did not originally include the Catholic identity; but now it does,” Schneider explained. “This helps us focus on not only the academics, but the core of what we do here by providing a Catholic education.

“By determining how diocesan Catholic schools are viewed,” she continued,  “recognizing strengths and weaknesses, analyzing how Catholic identity factors in, how we value what we are doing within the state, how teachers want to teach at Catholic schools to be able to share their faith and how strongly we feel about our faith … it’s all part of an on-going process.” 

With school days being as busy as they are, Schneider said that making time to work on the domain can be a challenge – but it’s very important. She also noted that the Governance and Leadership domain is dynamic; it is a process that never can be fully completed.

While the need for accountability for schools within the state remains constant, she said the work of continuously improving diocesan schools while maintaining Catholic identity is vital to implementing Catholic schools’ missions and visions.

This is the second in a series on AdvancEd certification in the Diocese of Evansville.